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Laurence, Does your work draw on any of the work Devon has been doing over at OCLC? http://www.code4lib.org/2006/smith rob Rob Styles Programme Manager, Data Services, Talis tel: +44 (0)870 400 5000 fax: +44 (0)870 400 5001 direct: +44 (0)870 400 5004 mobile: +44 (0)7971 475 257 msn: [log in to unmask] irc: irc.freenode.net/mmmmmrob,isnick > -----Original Message----- > From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of > Laurence Finston > Sent: 23 March 2007 20:38 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] GNU Metadata Exchange Utilities > > Eric Lease Morgan wrote: > > > On Mar 21, 2007, at 5:07 AM, Laurence Finston wrote: > > > > > Cool, and interesting. I think I speak for the community when I > > sincerely say, "Good luck". > > > > Thank you. > > > The goals you desire to achieve with the software are the same sorts > > of goals many of us have. I'm sure some of us will install and > > experiment with the Exchange Utilities when they are easily > > installable on the platforms we support. Alas, many of us simply do > > not have access to Microsoft products. > > This list is clearly not the place to discuss my personal situation, > but I will say that I need to find work in order to continue working > on this package. If I'm not employed _to_ work on it, I would work on > it in my free time. I think this kind of project could receive > funding from some institution, but I'm not in a position to apply for > it. One problem with Free Software is finding someone to finance it. > > Using Microsoft products wasn't my choice. Visual Studio promotes a > style of programming that starts with the GUI and then adds > functionality to the buttons, edit boxes, etc. This is the opposite > of what I think is the "right" way to go about it. That's why I'm > building the new package around an interpreter that I've written using > GNU Bison. (Just in case anyone isn't familiar with this topic, Bison > is > the GNU version of the UNIX utility `yacc'. Bison and yacc are > "compiler > generators".) > > The sub-package `scantest' can be installed on GNU/Linux systems. > It should work on other UNIX-like systems, but I haven't tested > this. At present, it's a "toy" program, since it doesn't perform > a useful function, but it might be fun to try. I find it quite > enjoyable watching the output from Bison parsers, but perhaps I'm > easily amused. > > I don't think a GUI is necessary for this package, but > one could be written. However, I would use a free library and > certainly not Visual Studio. I'm not personally a big fan of GUIs, > although they can be useful. An interpreter would also be useful in > combination with a GUI. However, for this purpose, I think an > interpreter for a machine-like language, and a scanner that reads > binary files, would be more useful. I've planned to write an > interpreter like this for my other package, GNU 3DLDF, but have never > had the time. > > There are a lot of free tools, libraries, etc., for some of the tasks > involved, notably `libxml' for handling XML data and YAZ for > accessing Z39.50 servers. Much of the work will "just" be a matter > of combining them. I believe that a good approach would be to > program "filters" for the individual tasks I want to solve, > i.e., programs that read from their standard input and write > to their standard output. Such "filters" can be chained using > pipes. As I'm sure many of you know, this is a typical style of > programming in UNIX-like programming environments. > > Of course, the filter programs could also have "side effects", > such as writing files. A great deal of my previous work has > involved Donald Knuth's TeX and related packages. > It's very easy to write programs that output TeX input files, > and it's possible to produce very high quality printable output > using TeX, usually in the form of PostScript or PDF files. > I will probably use TeX to represent the contents of the databases, > along with HTML. > > At present, I'm very occupied with job applications. I also have to > perform some tasks resulting from the package having been accepted by > the GNU Project. For example, I must add the required options, change > copyright notices, work on preparing a release, etc. > When I've done something that might be of interest to readers > of this list, I will post an announcement. Under the circumstances, > it may be awhile before I'm able to devote the necessary time to > programming. > > Laurence Finston The very latest from Talis read the latest news at www.talis.com/news listen to our podcasts www.talis.com/podcasts see us at these events www.talis.com/events join the discussion here www.talis.com/forums join our developer community www.talis.com/tdn and read our blogs www.talis.com/blogs Any views or personal opinions expressed within this email may not be those of Talis Information Ltd. The content of this email message and any files that may be attached are confidential, and for the usage of the intended recipient only. If you are not the intended recipient, then please return this message to the sender and delete it. Any use of this e-mail by an unauthorised recipient is prohibited. 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